


A Long December

by CypressSunn



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, Gift Giving, M/M, Pets, winter holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 00:22:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22006897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CypressSunn/pseuds/CypressSunn
Summary: “Alright Valenti, listen up. Rule number one, there will be absolutely no talking about our feelings.”“Typical.”
Relationships: Alex Manes/Kyle Valenti
Comments: 13
Kudos: 101
Collections: 101 Prompts Meme





	A Long December

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Everyone_Every_Ever](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everyone_Every_Ever/gifts).



> My dear Roswell Secret Santa, I apologize for how long this took. I had a terrible flu and could do literally nothing for days over the holiday. Thank you for granting me the opportunity to write such trope-y goodness and I really hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.  
> — Happy holidays!
> 
> P.S., this work also inspired by my 101 prompt #47: Holiday

_ “A long December and there's reason to believe _  
_ maybe this year will be better than the last. _  
_ I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself _  
_ to hold on to these moments as they pass.” _  
_ — Counting Crows _

Like any good ruse it, it starts with a decoy. 

Look over there, no, not up here; _there,_ where his hands aren’t moving but his lips are. Nothing to see here, don’t think too hard about it, and _please do_ jump to conclusions. It is easy enough, letting other people fill in the gaps of a lie. The harder part comes after, when you have to remember where they started.

For Alex, it starts in an unthawed desert night, in one of those last dying breaths of November. He hadn’t slept in days and it showed in his mussed hair and red eyes. The trail on Project Shepard’s axillary branches had run thin. The only remaining clues point to an unsolved case file in the Roswell Sheriff Department. That almost felt like a stroke of luck; his so-called partner was the son of the sheriff.

“This should be easy,” Alex told himself, slipping in through the station’s back emergency exit where Kyle held the door open. The air inside is warmer and white fluorescent light bouncing off the shiny tiled floors. “Or maybe… too easy.”

“Nothing is too easy,” grins Kyle, spinning a stolen set of keys on his index finger. Alex never put too much stock in the good doctor’s prognosis. Kyle had been a field operative for all of a handful of months and Alex was sure he was _this close_ to whistling theme songs over the closed comms. “You’re just paranoid, Manes.”

“Is that your medical opinion or your amateur covert officer's opinion?” Alex barbs back. Kyle grumbles something but Alex sticks a finger to him, close enough to touch. They need to keep it down; they’re just around the corner from Michelle Valenti’s office. The windows are dark and the hallways empty. 

“Coast is clear to commence extraction.”

“You’re stealing a couple of papers, not the crown jewels—”

“Stand guard, Valenti,” Alex commands and ducks into the office. 

The Sheriff's office is cramped and meager, sparse on furnishments. Not unusual for the underfunded public servants of Roswell. The desk is the central piece, tidy and sterile except for the novelty cactus snowglobe Alex is sure Kyle purchased. He can’t help but wonder for a moment if the bottom left drawer still catches when the lock is jimmied— the way it did years ago when Kyle and he had been twelve, caught playing hooky before winter break and found Jim’s vodka stash. That had been had Christmas. Not that it showed; near the filing cabinets Alex was looking for there were medals of merit framed along the walls; some of Michelle’s, most were Jim’s. So was the framed picture of Alex and Kyle that hung between the shiny gold ornaments. Spindly limbed and gap-toothed and years away from their decisive falling-out.

Prying the cabinet open, Alex multitasks. Skimming pages and numbers and stuck in a reminiscence he couldn’t shake. It was the looming holidays. Not even a real Manes man was immune.

Because for all justly deserved grief he gave Kyle, he wasn’t the worst partner he ever had. Alex had gone through a few, often called by his superiors as ‘hard to work with’ when Alex would have gone with ‘unwilling to tolerate ineptitude.’ Glory seekers, bungling coders, failed hackers, squadrons full of personalities that either thought they were invincible or above the command structure. Alex had seen them all come and go, or get themselves killed at the very least. Kyle, for all his flaws — and there were so, so many, as Alex kept reminding himself — he tried. Kyle tried for all the right reasons and he refused to let Alex work alone or in any semblance of peace.

It almost made it all more bearable, being shoulder to shoulder with Jim Valenti’s son in the dark of it all. He made a half-decent partner. But unfortunately, he was a far worse lookout.

In fact, Kyle is such an excruciatingly bad lookout that the footfalls shuffle outside the door seven minutes before Alex should have made his get away. He is still wrist deep in the Sheriff’s specially locked cold case files, comparing backdates and false signatures over three decades old. In all the faded ink and wrinkled paper, conspiracies yellow over age; one faked overdose, three pages out of the Bottomless Lakes robberies, missing truckers, and wire numbers to stolen identities—

The door knob twists and light floods the darkened room the same second Alex slides the filing cabinet shut. Heart pounding, mind racing, he is acutely aware of the half dozen felonies he has committed in the past fifteen minutes. Alex should have had more time, more warning. Kyle was supposed to be posted to the hallway corner, ready with the mayday signal. Instead the doctor turned failed field operative is following after his mother into the room, hot on her heels and her nerves.

“But we really need to talk about this now,” Kyle insits.

“Kyle, we will finish speaking about this when my shift is over,” says the Sheriff says, voice dripping with displeasure. It takes her a moment to realize something is amiss, to turn from her son to the intruder standing too close to her desk.

“Alex?”

“Senora Valenti.”

Her face darkens.

“Sheriff Valenti,” Alex corrects.

Turning slowly from Alex to Kyle, then back, she speaks so lowly and sternly as only a mother can. “You have ten seconds to explain what you are doing in here.”

The first two seconds tick by and Alex realizes he isn’t so much afraid of being arrested as he is of inevitably sharing a cell with Michael Guerin for the night. Seconds three, four and five go by and he figures if worse comes to worse, he isn’t afraid of being handed off to the Air Force Police either. The case will be thin, circumstantial at best, then dismissed as a waste of time and resources. Six, seven and eight stretch into silence and Alex recalls all ten digits of the family lawyer’s direct line; he’s good with numbers like that.

But Kyle cracks in the ninth.

“Mom,” he sweats, “it’s not what you’re thinking—”

“And what am I thinking?” she demands. Her eyes narrowing on her son, now certain he is in on whatever she’s stumbled upon. Kyle shrinks under her tone the same way he did when they were children. When Kyle was so gullible and daring that he’d practice graffiti art on his own garage door, go riding his dirt bike with his helmet off and with his hands nowhere near the handlebars. But right now, Michelle Valenti is more sheriff than she is a mother or anything else.

“Alex is here… because I asked him to be.” Kyle says, voice wavering a little as he crosses the titled office floor to take his place alongside Alex. Kyle passed him a conspiratorial look half brave, half cornered. “Because we, we have something to tell you.”

“No we don’t,” Alex contradicts. Because no. No way is he letting Kyle tell his mom about _aliens._ He’ll take the drunk tank with Guerin and an honorable discharge first.

“Yes, we do,” Kyle insists.

“We really don’t.”

 _“Entonces ,”_ she snaps. _“¿Cuál es? ”_

“Alex just has cold feet,” Kyle assures. “Like that time at the cabin on the Fourth of July.” It's a terrible segue into whatever excuse Kyle thinks is getting them out of this, but Alex remembers that last fishing trip. Remembers what happened, remembers that last bit of faith he left with Kyle. 

It had paid off then. It might pay off again. 

So Alex relents and Kyle extends his hand to his mother. “Let’s just sit-down and talk.”

Michelle doesn’t budge, soles glued to where she stands. A slow petrification creeps over her features. “The last time you asked me to sit down before you told me something—”

“ — was when I caught Dad falling off the wagon. Yeah, I remember.”

“Kyle Manuel,” she warns.

“No one’s sick. No one’s dying.” Kyle raises his hands in surrender, like he’s under arrest. “It’s good news. I promise.” Then, Kyle slips an arm around Alex’s waist and following the moment of madness, Alex’s body in turn eases into the sudden touch. Alex isn’t sure why he does it. Every instinct in him knows better, or at least they should. But he’s holding his breath. He’s not speaking up. He shouldn’t be going along with this ingeniously stupid plan, and yet—

It works.

“ _Mijo_ ,” Michelle’s voice quivers, eyes wide. A moment passes, then another. Ten whole seconds before she takes Kyle’s hand. “Okay we should talk before… I need some, some air.”

“I’ll come with you,” Kyle offers, soft.

Michelle nods. She looks turns to Alex. 

“I’ll just wait here,” he promises, trying to look as sober and hopeful as a moment like this would call for if it was anything close to genuine. If Kyle had actually just dared to come out to his mother. Kyle shuts the door behind him, glancing back with his own unreadable look. Almost like—

No, Alex shakes his head. That’s ridiculous.

When the door is firmly closed, he dives back into the filing cabinet. Alex has a mission to complete.

* * *

The false reports lead them to ancient phone books and the yellow pages lead them to a motel built in the Eisenhower era. Those records lead to the great nephew of the proprietor which leads to a wild goose chase through some hoarders backyard and into yet another doomsday bunker.

“I am so sick of bunkers,” Alex seethes, testing the light switches for power. “If we run into one more souped up booby trapped basement for another rapture fearing freak—”

Kyle is stretched out in a lawn chair next to a flimsy folding table playing with a ham radio.

“At least this one doesn’t have any _literal skeletons_ ,” Kyle says. “Or y’know, any more preserved body parts in jars. I’m still having nightmares about that gallbladder.”

“Who even believes this place is gonna protect them from the end of the world?” Alex's voice echos in all the empty space, bouncing off the cracking cement walls. “There is zero ventilation, let alone insulation. It’s only November and the chill in here could cause hypothermia.”

“I’m sure you could build a better bunker,” Kyle soothes.

“Shut up,” Alex huffs. “And yes, I could.”

Kyle laughs. “So while we’re stuck scrounging for clues—” Kyle trails off and Alex waits. It’s been a long time since they were the kind of people who finished each other’s sentences. He’s not sure why Kyle is hanging along, waiting for Alex to pipe up. “My mom, she, um—”

“Still thinks you’re gay?”

“Bi, actually. And also we're _dating_?”

“And who's fault is that?”

“Mine. Yeah, sorta, kinda.” Kyle has the audacity to get hot in the face, red enough that it glows in the light thrown off by his flashlight. “Why do you say it like that?”

“Like it's unbelievable?” Alex asks. “Because it is. Because honestly, I am astounded a woman as sharp as your mother fell for a lie that blatant.”

Kyle looks offended. “Maybe it slipped your mind but that lie kept you out of jail.”

“You keeping a better watch would have done the same,” Alex argues. He’s keeping his hands busy and prying a control panel door open. The metal sags against the wall where rusted screws have worked their way out of the wall. None of the wires should be live. Not until they find the generator. “How do you plan on talking her out of that one, anyway?”

Kyle is uncharacteristically quiet. Alex pretends not to notice. Keeps tracing out the wires, checking the switchboard for faulty connections. 

“So about that,” Kyle starts after an eternity. “She wants to know when, yknow, if we’re telling people…”

Alex slaps his hand against the control panel a little too loudly. “I could rig this box to explode and kill us both instantly.”

“I’ll tell her we’re keeping it quiet.”

* * *

The holidays encroach faster than Alex anticipates. Perhaps he has spent too much time underground or sneaking around back offices to notice all of Roswell is littered with fake cornucopias and turkey memorabilia along with the obnoxiously premature Christmas decorations. Streamers of multicolored lights and flashing pre-season sales promise Black Friday stampedes and a very not white Christmas in the Southwest. Not even the _Crashdown Cafe_ is safe. The alien on the front door wears a pilgrim hat that drains Alex of his appetite.

“Look happy to see me,” Kyle whispers harshly, exiting the cafe in a hurry. A moment later he is shoving a to-go cup in Alex’s hand. It smells hot and dark and soul-restoring and Alex really does smile. 

But only because the coffee is delicious and for no other reason. 

“Light sugar, no creamer. Perfect.” Alex resists the urge to gulp it down. Sips it instead. It savors nicely. Next to him the other man is still tense. The vein across his forehead protruding impressively. He shifts back and forth on his feet with his fists shoved in his pockets. Alex sighs. “Kyle, blink twice if I’m walking into a hostage situation.”

Kyle blinks twice.

“Goddammit.”

“My mom is inside sitting at the counter,” he explains in a rush. “Arturo is giving her pointers on this year’s turkey stuffing. Then she saw you and she tried to wave you down but you didn’t see her.”

“And you came out here to intercept me because she still thinks that we are… Kyle, it's been days!”

“It’s been two days,” Kyle clarifies. “And keep smiling.”

“Yeah, that makes it _so_ much better. And no, I’m done smiling. You’re going to tell her the truth.”

“About all the crimes we committed?”

“No, about you fake coming out to her!”

“Who says I was faking?” Kyle hooks their elbows together and they start walking with a backwards wave through the windowed storefront of the _Crashdown_. Michelle waves back, tentatively.

“You know people can see us,” Alex warns as they stroll pass the doors of _Bean Me Up_. He knows Kyle’s high school years are long behind him, but phobias die hard. No way he would chance people seeing them strolling so close.

“Of course they can. They have eyes, don’t they? Now drink your coffee.”

Alex goes along with it, again because it is a very good coffee. He doesn't drink fast enough to Kyle’s liking and the doctor tilts the bottom of the upturned cup higher against Alex’s lips. Alex can smell his cologne wafting in the chilled air. Or is it aftershave?

“So my mom also really wants to invite you to Thanksgiving.” Alex chokes down the last swallow. “Yeah, I told her you wouldn’t come, with the whole thing where it's a holiday about killing Indians.”

“That’s definitely on the list of reasons. Right next to, _she thinks that we’re dating,_ Kyle!” Alex is beyond exasperated. “Don’t we have enough conspiracies on our plate?”

“She insisted I ask and she knows you’re not gonna be with family so… would it be so bad to just go along with it?

“If she asks again, tell her we broke up or something. Hell, tell her the truth, that you’re not even gay.”

“I never told her I was gay,” Kyle insists, not looking at Alex. It proves Alex right even though he feels no vindications. Phobias really do die hard. But now Kyle is flustered, as if Alex was the one doing this to him or how he ended up in this predicament. Like he didn’t get how to make Alex understand. “I just— it doesn’t matter. Sorry I asked. I’ll figure out something, someway to tell her.”

Kyle looks like he’s about to say something more, but instead walks off in a huff of visible air. The last dregs of coffee are cold and bitter to the taste, but somehow Alex can still smell that aftershave.

* * *

The banner advertising the _Annual Ranchero Night Anti-Colonial Feast That Just So Happens To Coincide With The National Disgrace That Is The Thanksgiving Holiday_ hangs outside the _Wild Pony_ in all it’s poorly lettered glory. It was a long night’s work produced back in their middle school years. The Bush era had been hard to stand in such a small town, and dangerous joy to rebel against for a bunch of punk kids. The spot under the adjustable party tables is where he, Rosa and Maria had spent hours painting and sewing fabric between stealing shots of tequila. Mimi DeLuca had been so proud.

Not much else about the _Pony_ had really changed. The donation table was still rickety and buckling under a generous heap of canned goods. Charity pool matches full of swearing drunks and someone slipped on spilled beer. Hungry bodies heaving food onto paper plates. The taste of fried pickles and roast pumpkin filled the air mingling with yeasty beer and the subtle hints of _tulapai_. And Maria DeLuca at the center of it all, clipboard in hand, conductor of the chaos.

Alex isn’t sure if he wants space, for Maria to pretend she doesn’t see him or if what he really wants is for one of them to have the guts to approach the other. Alex figures leaving his boxed non-perishable donations in the canned good piles is enough of a determination.

“You know that's not where that goes,” Maria chastises gently when she draws nearer.

“Really?” Alex feigns, stacking a pyramid of cans on donated toiletries. “Sure about that?”

Maria cuts to the chase. He always liked that about her. “How have you been?”

“Working,” Alex asserts, a little too quickly. “My father wove a tangled web of stolen money and xenophobia. Dismantling it keeps me busy.”

“Glad to hear it,” Maria simpers on, leaning against one of the _Pony’s_ wooden support pillars. Her sweet singsong candor easing her next words, “I thought for a while that you might be avoiding me. Or worse, drinking at some other bar.”

Alex chuckles and it doesn’t hurt, for the most part. “The day I drink at _Saturn’s Ring_ is the day they’ll put me in the ground _._ ”

Maria tilts her head aside. “But if you were angry, that’d be okay…” she starts. 

Alex scoffs. “Don’t see how it would help.”

“Sometimes it’s not about helping or hurting. Sometimes it's just about feeling… You get to feel things, Alex. I know you forget that sometimes.”

It's such a Maria thing to say that Alex wants to lean into the comfortable familiarity. Take the loss, call the emotional armistice. But he can't. He can't let himself. 

“I’m not mad at you,” Alex insists. “I’m not.” Maria doesn’t look convinced. Not that Alex sounded that convinced, either. “At least I don't think that I am. Wouldn’t have gone out and bought all this canned sweet corn as an excuse to come here if I was.”

Maria looks sorry again. “You don't need an excuse, Alex. I'm here, anytime. If you're not seeing your mom or your brothers over the holiday, you could even—”

“I have plans.” Alex startles himself even as he says it. But he can't stand it; all her charity, while he has nothing to show for himself. “A dinner invitation.” 

“Oh?”

“Yeah, he invited me a while ago, a sit down dinner with his mom, tell her more about us—”

“Whoa, wait. Who is the guy?”

Alex remembers once upon a time, Maria worked day and night to get Michael's name out of him. His world would be such a different place if he had let her. That Alex is sure of. 

“Alex, do not make that face. This time you have to tell me.”

“Nah. Any mistake that big bears repeating, don't you think?”

Maria lets the cheap shot land. “Fine, keep your mystery man a secret. But I expect details come December.”

Alex takes his peace and Maria waves daintily goodbye and it's not until he's at the threshold of the front door that he can almost breathe. Push through all his emotions and missed chances and aching distances and breathe.

“Alex?”

Kyle is blocking the exit, trying to enter the bar. He's got a bushel full bag of fresh food. Alex takes it out of his hands and dumps it to the wayside. Someone will find it.

“Hey, you can't just—” Kyle shouts when Alex turns him by the collar and out the door. 

"We are doing this," Alex announces in the parking lot. “The whole charade with your mom, with Thanksgiving. We're doing it.”

* * *

“So wait, what changed your mind?” Kyle asks back at the cabin. He’s been bouncing with excitement ever since Alex’s agreement.

“We're gonna need rules,” Alex says, dodging the question. 

“What? Don't kiss you on the mouth? Go full Pretty Woman?”

“Your knowledge of romcoms is only going to take you so far, Kyle. Do you really understand what you're signing up for? Telling people that your bi?” _When you're not?_ goes unspoken. But Alex is sure Kyle knows what he means. “What are you even getting out of this?”

“Other than both of us a get out of jail free card for snooping in my mother's office?”

“Yes. Other than that.”

“I hate the holidays. I'm an unmarried physician in a small town. People keep throwing their daughters at me like we're living in the middle ages. I can't get a tank of gas or go for a jog without having to take down some single, very eligible ladies number.”

“Being heterosexual sounds like such a burden.”

“ _Presumed_ heterosexual.”

Alex rolls his eyes.

“Well,” Kyle starts. “Your turn; why are you saying yes now?”

“Maria won't admit it, but she and Guerin are… it doesn't matter. If they get to be happy, I get to pretend to be. I'm good at pretending. No pity, no sorry looks, no one looking at me like I lost the other leg because I'm just so heartbroken.”

“You are heartbroken,” Kyle says gently.

“Alright Valenti, listen up. Rule number one, there will be absolutely no talking about our feelings.”

“Typical.”

“Rule number two is Pretty Woman. No kissing. Touching is fine near other people, but otherwise don't even try it.”

Kyle gives a calculating look. “In the interest of fairness, you can’t make all the rules. So, rule number three, you come with me to the hospital donor's winter gala.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Come on. I need you. That's when the debutantes really swarm. Plus Your dad will be there and just imagine how bad it'll piss him off.”

“Tempting… Alright fine. Maybe I'll even take you to the airbase Christmas party for kicks.”

“Excellent.”

“It may end with one or both of us dead.”

“Sounds like our typical Friday night.”

“Rule number four, you are not allowed to make any pop culture references. The only ones you get right are romcoms,” Alex adds with emphasis. “Spare us both the embarrassment.”

“You still haven't forgiven me for Star Trek?”

“Never.”

“How about rule four is, you have to show me the damn movies?”

“Star Trek is a series, Star Wars is— screw it, let me write this all down.”

Scribbling on the back of loose junkmail on the dining table, Kyle leans in close to look over Alex’s shoulder. There’s that aftershave again.

“Rule number five… I want a Christmas present,” Kyle decides with triumph.

“Are you joking?”

“And it had better be wrapped, Manes.”

“Alright, easy enough. And finally. Rule six. We break up at New Years.”

“What?” Kyle is aghast. “That's not believable at all. No one breaks up on New Years.”

“Fine. The week after.”

“ _Seriously?_ ”

“What? Do you wanna stick around until February?”

“Well, we can't break up before Valentine's Day, either.”

Alex groans. “Then do you have some emotional attachment to Saint Patrick's day? No? Okay then, we break up in March. Hopefully by then my father is drawn and quartered for his crimes, no one sets off any bio bombs or breaks the Geneva Convention, and my oldest friend and first almost boyfriend will be done with each other and I won't be asked to feel some way about it.”

Kyle nods along sagely, slinging his arm around Alex’s shoulders. “Good thing you’re not asking for much.”

* * *

Thanksgiving arrives with the same mixed feelings it always does. The streets are barren and everything is closed. Everyone with somewhere to go plays up their gratitude to the American dream with prayer and gluttony and displays of self aggrandizing charity. 

For Alex it's the worst Thursday of the year. The day he is the most invisible. The native son glossed over in the uglier parts of the story left to carry a displaced grief.

His stomach rumbles before he knocks at the Valenti’s door. Well, if nothing else, at least he could eat.

Michelle opens the door and greets Alex with a smile.

“I brought sparkling cider.”

“Nothing harder?” she winks.

“I won’t lie, I thought about it. But I still feel weird bringing alcohol around.”

It was after all still Jim Valenti’s home. No amount of time would change that. It always felt like he was just around the corner of one of the white washed walls, sitting in one of the overstuffed couches. Michelle leads Alex further into the open, airy living room adorned with crucifixes and renderings of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Festive red succulents were everywhere and Alex could smell something roasting.

“Kyle says you don’t like Thanksgiving,” Michelle mentions.

“It’s pretty low on my list. Right down there next to Columbus day.”

“But we’re glad he’s here,” Kyle cheers, stepping out of the kitchen in a ridiculous patterned apron. He walks up to Alex and pecks a kiss to his cheek.

Michelle smiles softly at them, then excuses herself to set the table.

“Watch it, Valenti. Rule two,” he reminds him.

Kyle looks dismayed. “You cannot call me Valenti at dinner.”

“Watch me.”

*

They make it through a round of southwest cornbread and baked tamales when their hostess asks, “so when did you two start seeing each other?”

“Alien hunting,” Alex answers nonchalant. “Working around a massive institutional cover-up meant we spent a lot of time together.”

“Ha ha ha,” Kyle laughs mirthlessly before kicking Alex’s prosthetic leg under the table. “What he means is Alex came in for a medical referral. And we hung out a few times, caught up and all that good, normal, non-alien related stuff.”

“Kyle just kept inviting himself to the cabin. I think he likes my dog more than he likes me me.”

Michelle laughs. “He always wanted a pet but he could never decide on a dog or cat or a goldfish.”

“I can’t imagine elementary school Kyle keeping anything alive, honestly.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence but in case everyone at the table forgot, I keep _people_ alive pretty much all the time. Like it’s my day job or something.”

Michelle continues her gentle but probing questions and Alex and Kyle take turn fabricating answers. It’s easy enough with that fact that Kyle and Alex really have spent too much time together lately. Everything has the slightest grain of truth.

They are making their way through the cilantro lime roasted turkey when Kyle gets a call from the hospital. He excuses himself to go wander the kitchen and pantry with his cell phone glued to his ear, relaying medical advice and procedural precautions in a slow measured tone.

“Alex, I didn’t get the chance to say it before, thank you for your service.”

Alex puts down his fork and knife, pushing his empty plate away. “You don’t have to say that.”

“It’s Thanksgiving,” she argues. “The time for gratitude. And more than that… Thank you for what you mean to Kyle. I never thought that…” Michelle stares off at Kyle who appears and disappears at the mouth of the hallway, still pacing and deep in thought about surgical methods. “I never thought he would be able to admit to himself that he wasn't what other people thought he was.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm a mother, Alex. A mother always knows first. I knew he liked more than just girls. You were his first crush after all.”

Alex lets out a soft disbelieving chuckle but it feels the wind get knocked out of him.

“I thought maybe I was wrong,” Michelle continues, “or that he wouldn't ever figure out that side of himself.”

“And you, you don't care?”

“I'm embarrassed to admit but… I worried before. I wanted to be wrong about it, when he was a boy. Thought that it would be easier for him if I was. And I know kyle already thinks I'm old fashioned, that I'm biased and bigoted—”

Alex stops her with a raised hand. “I know bigots. And you are no bigot.”

*

The magnitude of the situation only finally hits Alex on their ride home from dinner. “You really came out to her. That day in her office. You weren't lying. No, you were lying about us but you weren't lying about _yourself_.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny this,” Kyle says in a mock approximation of a soldier.

“What?”

“Rule number one. We don't talk about our feelings.”

Alex exhales, unclenching his hands from the steering wheel. “I really do hate you Valenti.”

* * *

The dawning days of December mean a return to business as usual. Alex is still with Kyle more often than he is not. But people are beginning to notice. Things like Kyle with his hands around Alex’s elbow or the two of them with their heads together, speaking lowly in coffee houses, dinners, the _Wild Pony_. Of course their friends notice, but its Rosa giving Alex knowing looks whenever she sees him. Between her and Michelle’s warmed over pride in her son, everyone’s falling for it. It makes the facade easy to keep up with so surprisingly few people questioning them whenever they go and Alex doesn’t know how to feel about it.

They all seem to have an easier time than he swallowing the idea of Kyle as anything other than straight. Not that any of them lived through his highschool taunting, so maybe Alex could be forgiven his hesitation.

“Being back here is kinda like high school all over again, and not in a good way,” Kyle complains as they prowl through Grant Green’s notebook stash in the restricted area of the UFO Emporium. 

“What exactly would be ‘like high school, but in a good way’ for us?” Alex challenges with more edge than he care to admit.

“Good point.” Kyle looks aside. “And I know you get mad when I keep apologizing…”

“Kyle. Drop it.” They had bigger things to worry about. Like removing all real proof of aliens from their least favorite local tourist trap.

“But I can’t drop it if you still hate me!”

Still hating Kyle would be the easier option. But Alex has never made anything easier on himself, not for one day in his life. “Would I have agreed to any of this if I still hated you?”

Kyle’s brow quirks as the implication sinks in. “So if you don’t hate me then—”

A light flips on in the hallway outside the restricted office. A wave of _deja vu_ hits and Alex realizes they’re caught— again.

“Get under the desk,” Alex is halfway through commanding before Kyle crowds in around him. He backs Alex into a nook between bookshelves of old conspiracy theory zines and a poster announcing aliens killed Kennedy.

“Untuck your shirt,” hisses Kyle, running his hands through Alex’s non-regulation length hair. They are standing too close, chest to chest, Kyle’s lips inches away from his. Kyle loops his thumb around Alex’s belt and Alex can’t help but shiver.

The door swings open and Graham Green, who Alex still hasn’t ruled out as a clone of Grant, shouts at them. “Hey lovebirds! This space is off limits!”

They clear out with a half-assed apology and the bags they stole from the gift shop shoved full of old cassettes and verifiable proof of extraterrestrial life in Roswell.

“You were real close to breaking rule two back there, Valenti,” Alex says once their getaway is complete. “Something you want to tell me?”

“You’re the one who said I had to think better on my feet. And no rule was broken so…”

Alex shakes his head and wonders not for the first time what he’s gotten himself into.

* * *

“The whole town is gossiping, you know.” Liz informs Alex as much as she brings him his Spock Spatula omelette surprise on chilly morning. He’s dining by himself. Kyle is in surgery, or he was at the time of his last text where he chittered excitedly about laparoscopic procedures. “I'm a waitress. I hear things.”

“You're a scientist,” Alex corrects. “You believe things with quantifiable evidence.”

“Well, the way Kyle looks at you like that seems obvious enough for me.” Liz’s antennae bounce as she sits down at the counter alongside him. “Now I know our little conspiratorial friend group is in a weird place right now. Were not exactly organizing a secret Santa anytime soon…”

Alex has no idea where this is going. “But?”

“But you were quick to tell Maria all about your ex. Didn't you think you should tell me about Kyle?”

It had never once occurred to Alex that Liz would feel anyway shape or form about his fake dalliance with Kyle. An uncertainty settles over his gut.

“Liz, I… I didn’t-”

“I'm kidding, Alex.”

Alex relaxes his shoulders. “Good. Because technically I saw him first. Way before grade school.”

Liz pulls a spare silver fork from the pouch of her apron and steals a bite off of Alex’s plate. “You’re right, the two of you shared a sandbox,” she muses through a mouthful of eggs. “I never stood a chance, did I?”

* * *

The deeper into the season, the more people ask Alex about Kyle. They ask how he’s doing, how he’s faring at the hospital, and how is his mother. They send their best and holiday wishes and only some sneer under their breath. Because for the most part the world doesn't end with Kyle on his arm. People don’t care, of if they do they keep it to themselves.

Isobel Evans is of course, the exception. She wanders up to him in line at _Bean Me Up_ already holding her own steaming latte.

“My brother said you broke up with him once because you thought he was a _dirty, dirty criminal,_ ” she sneers. “But I can see you stepped up in the world now that your dating a doctor.”

Alex has made it this far into the holidays without having to think about Michael. His heart doesn’t beat hard and hollow at the mere mention of him. Alex wants to count it as progress. He wonders how much of it does he owe to Kyle?

“Normally that would make you _persona non grata_ as far as I was concerned but as you and Kyle will be the focal guests of the hospital winter gala I’m throwing—”

“What? Since when?” Alex had forgotten rule three.

“Since I am the event coordinator five years running and nobody rakes in donations like me.” Isobel flipped her long blond hair in a proud flourish. “I need you and Kyle front and center. Breaking boundaries and stereotypes. All I need is a few perfect photographs. Preferably preferably coordinated outfits. Can you manage that?”

“We’re not poster boys, Isobel.” Alex has a tiring flashback to day-long parade when he returned from active duty. Streamers and balloons and megaphones and the limelight, all of which he hated.

“Well for one night, you need to be.” But it's clear she senses Alex will not budge so she changes tactics. She leans in close and nearly spills her coffee. “I _need_ this, Alex. I'm swamped with Christmas events and already planning the new year. I'm booked until Easter and the inevitable bunny rabbit rehoming pet drive.”

“The _what_?”

“Did you know that every kid in town wants to take home an easter bunny from the pet store come April? But none of them seem to know that rabbits take actual work and actual commitment and live for upwards of ten years. So when the little brats get bored, the animals get euthanized unless I save them. Something I can only do if I'm not too busy still trying to convince the tourism board that Roswell is an inclusive and diverse place all the way into next year—”

Alex cuts her off from her rant. “You’re trying to paint a picture of Roswell that doesn’t exist.”

“Be that as it may, but we still have two successful, interracial, hometown heroes who are clearly sickeningly in love—” Alex bit down a laugh. People just kept assuming that, didn't they? “All you need to do is smile for some extra photos. So what's it going to be, Alex?” Her immaculate manicure drums impatiently on the cardboard of her coffee cup. “Are you going to help me or are the baby bunnies going to have to fend for themselves?”

“Those really can't be the only two options. And I'm more a dog person, anyway.” 

Alex’s name is called and he takes his leave, waltzing to the counter. But the barista holding up his cup walks out from behind the counter and hands it directly to Isobel. She smiles coyly from under a few blonde strands of hair.

“Did you just get into her _head_?”

“One of my many talents. Now listen closely. You will not out-snark me, Alex Manes. What you will do is arrive in a suit and tie or your dress blues or so help me I will mind-whammy every guest into nonstop Christmas carols. They will follow you home and you will not escape. Do we have an understanding?”

She stares Alex down and he stares right back.

“Give me my coffee and maybe I’ll reconsider.”

* * *

“I want a mulligan,” Alex mutters in a hospital on-call room. Its t-minus ten minutes until the hospital charity is underway. The strictly black tie and ball gown affair already feels stifling and oppressive. Plus his family are hospital benefactors. His father is somewhere skulking around, failing to smile and setting townsfolk on edge. But what he lacked in people skills he made up for with money and influence.

“Did Isobel corner you, too?” Kyle laughs warmly and smooths out the creases in his blazer. “Don't tell me you're scared, Alex.”

“Not scared. Reasonably cautious… Seriously. We shouldn't do this.”

“It's in the contract.”

“A verbal agreement. One easily amended. You let me back out of rule three and you get to break one other rule of your choosing. Think about it, you can talk about your feelings. Or opt out of Star Wars.”

Kyle’s eyes narrow. “That's not the rule I would break.” Wandering into Alex’s space, as he is want to do of late, he begins adjusting Alex's tie before giving up on the terrible job the other man has done. He loosens it and ties it over again with nimble and precise fingers. From the mirror he can see the knot Kyle ties is perfect, settled at the base of Alex's throat. Alex can’t help but swallow. “There. Now me and my very handsome boyfriend are ready to charm the pants off this party.”

“People tend not to find me charming.” 

Kyle looks at Alex sideways like he can’t believe what he sees. “You really do underestimate yourself. Now quit stalling. Time to pay up, Manes.”

Alex watches Kyle for a moment, searching his face for the source of all this damn calm. “Why aren't you more scared, Valenti?”

“Because… because I'm a grown man, not a teenager. I'm at no one's mercy. And neither are you. No one gets to make you feel—” Kyle pauses. “I see what you're doing. You trying to make me talk about feelings. And if I break rule number one, you get to back out. Which is not happening. Let's go.”

*

The shindig is sweeping and jolly. There are hanging lights and party favors and name tiles on grandiose seating placements. The music is too loud and banal and people keep walking up to Alex to introduce themselves to Doctor Valenti’s boyfriend. Kyle, unsurprisingly, is better at smalltalk. It's a clear extension of his bedside manner and professionally mandated patience. Alex thinks he could perhaps sail through the night letting Kyle do all the talking. But then someone asks Alex what he likes about his service to home and country.

“Learning to fly,” he explains off the cuff. “Best thing I ever did.”

“I imagine it's liberating,” drolls one donor or another. “The open skies are the picture of freedom.”

“It's not what people imagine it is.” Alex continues before realizing his error. Now people are listening, expecting more. “When you're up there, managing flight systems, eyes on the horizon, there's still a mission at hand. And you never forget that you still have to come back down to earth.”

People around him puzzle to themselves but Kyle nods. “I think I get it. I mean I love surgery. Love operating rooms, the smell of surgical sterilization in the morning. It's a rush, to have the power to fix something, living breathing things. But there's a gravity to it to. I mean I’m still cutting into people. And at the end of it all, it's a different kind of mission objective—”

“One where you kill fewer people, right Doctor Valenti?

Kyle laughs tightly along with everyone else in their little crowd. He looks like he can already tell Alex hates the joke, as with anything else that makes light of his casualties. Alex excuses himself moments later and prays no one notices the coincidence.

Kyle tries to follow after him. “I'm sorry, Doctor Battaglia is pretty crass. He, he just doesn't get it.”

“But you do,” Alex says. There’s weight there, something to marvel at. It had been a long time since Alex believed either could ever understand anything about each other. But Alex trusts that soft glow in Kyle’s eye, the way he regards his old war wounds gently. “Go enjoy the party. Just give me a second.”

Kyle reaches out and squeezes Alex's hand and departs.

*

In the washroom, Alex remembers a time when he wasn’t a drag at parties. Or better yet a time when he could bail guiltlessly on any boring town affairs and call up Maria. When the pair of them were always up for milkshakes or commiseration without an elephant-sized cross-streamed alien love connection in the room. 

It’s moments like this he misses her most. Moments when he needs someone with her sensitive touch to decipher what the hell it meant when Kyle spent the evening looking at him the way he has.

Knowing he’s been hiding too long, Alex tries to edge his way back into the party without being noticed. But the hallways are not empty.

“My family's donation to the hospital was eagerly received this year,” drones a dangerously monotone voice. “The board seemed light on donations. Especially in the surgical wing.”

“There's a plaque on the wall with your name on it. Isn't the thanks enough Master Sergeant?”

Shit. What was Kyle doing talking to his father?

“Why is it I'm sensing so much ingratitude?”

“It could be because while you go around shaking hands and having actual nurses and doctors, accepting thank you for all your generosity, none of them know they're actually accepting handouts from a _murderer_.”

Alex hugs closer to the bend in the wall he stands tucked behind. They can’t see him, but if Kyle needs back up, Alex has a compact knife up his sleeve. And one tucked in his dress shoes.

“Believe it or not,” Jesse continues, “I never wanted things with your father to end the way they did.

“You pushed him into that cell, into a death sentence—”

“And I miss Jim everyday. Especially around the holidays—”

“God, it's amazing how bad you are at are feigning humanity. You hate aliens but you can't even muster up any human real emotion. You're a sociopath.”

“Is that your diagnosis, _doctor_?”

“That you're a detached, emotionless bastard, incapable of love or compassion? Yeah. Pretty much.”

Around the corner, Alex can see Jesse hand Kyle something. A small folded piece of paper.

"A check with a lot of zeros. What for? You can't buy forgiveness for what you did to my father.”

“It's not for your father. You think I am incapable of attachment because I don’t shower my sons with the same leniency your father showed you. But you will find that I protect what is mine. Protect it from harm, from perversion. Even if I have to protect him from his own choices.”

Dammit. Alex should have known. He had been gallivanting around Roswell with a boyfriend. Of course Jesse Manes would see fit to intervene.

“This is a simple exchange. Money for your surgical wing. They say you are talented. But that money buys more resources and puts your hospital on the map, which bolsters your career. All you need to do is end this ridiculous relationship with my son.” Jesse spits out the words like the leave a bad taste in his mouth.

“Are you for real? You're buying me off?”

“You're almost preferable to his last unfortunate choice. At least you're the right species.”

“Your son is _gay_ , Jesse. And he's always going to be. If it's me or someone else!”

Jesse chuckled darkly. “As far as anyone in this town knew, a month ago you were straight. There could be hope for Alex yet.”

“How dare you— no.” Alex hears Kyle think better of it with a stamp of his foot. “Just take your goddamn money and shove it. You are not scaring me away from Alex.”

“The offer stands. Think about it and about your career.” Alex can hear Jesse's feet treading ominously in the other direction. “And what your father would say if he could see you now.”

*

Alex finds Kyle by the punch bowl. He looks exhausted. Alex grabs ahold of his wrist and leads him through the throng of bodies. They ignore Isobel and half the oncology department and ducked out early into the night.

“No one gets to make you feel small.” Kyle says under the dark lit rolling streetlamps they walk under. “That’s what I was saying earlier. Why I'm not afraid of taking you to parties or your dad or this town or. We're a team.”

Sometimes in the winter chill, watching their breath disappear into frost, Alex still felt like a trespasser in the town he grew up in. Like he had less of a right to exist on a city street holding the hand of a boy he had once loved. Alex didn’t know if there was a cure to the feeling. But so far Kyle never letting go, squeezing his fingers right back seemed the only thing that helped.

“Your dad would be proud of you.” Alex says, knowing he’s giving himself away.

“You heard all that?” Kyle looks regretful.

“Jim loved me, and I wasn't even his kid. And your dad would have loved you no matter what, the same as your mom. But you don't have to prove that at any party or with anybody in this forsaken small town. We should just skip the airbase party. And you should take the money. I want you to take the money.”

“Whoa— are you serious?” Kyle looks offended. Offended enough he drops Alex’s hand. “No way.”

“Is taking dirty money and putting it to good use is against your code?”

“Yeah actually. And because if I did that I know my father would be ashamed of me. We have a deal, Alex. And I gave you my word.”

Alex reaches out his hand again. “Until Saint Patrick's day?”

Kyle slots their fingers together and holds tight. “Until Saint Patrick's day.”

* * *

Kyle, Liz, and Rosa have formed a strange family unit. Alex isn't sure why but Rosa has wrangled all of her siblings into decorating _Alex's_ cabin for the Christmas holiday. There’s generations of family decorations on spilling out of boxes from the Valenti, Ortecho and Manes family stock. Tinsel, baubles, ornaments, two fake spindly plastic green trees. A row of nutcrackers and an arrangement of peppermint sticks and hot-glued over sized red stockings hanging over the crackling fire Alex had to kindle because the three of them were hopeless with a box of matches.

“This is a little… _consumerist,_ don't you think?” He asks Rosa as she paints angry elven-looking creatures onto a handheld ceramic cactus pot.

“Maybe we overdid it a little with the lights,” she admits.

“A little?”

Kyle was currently struggling to hang enough blinking Christmas lights to cause a fire hazard.

“Look, they wanted our first Christmas all together again to be special. And Liz loves it and Kyle does to. And you wanna make Kyle happy, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” Alex snaps. And fuck, he means it. He really means it.

Kyle who insisted on listening to Christmas music in the car and who donated to well researched holiday charity drives and never withholds his smiles, his easy going jokes or his cheesy laughter. It's not hard to settle into his giving warmth or to indulge in it. To aspire to it.

It had been the same when they were kids; Kyle just lit up every room he stepped into. Where too many of the rooms Alex had grown up in had been dark. Vacuum sucked dry of humor and tenderness. Void and absent. Friendship with Kyle had been the fix. Chasing after his best friends whims had been a childhood pastime. One Alex had fallen back into without noticing.

“I invited Maria to swing by later,” Rosa tosses out, interrupting Alex’s reverie. “Will that be a problem?”

“Uh, no. Is she bringing Guerin?”

“Nah. He's spending the holidays with Max and Isobel and their parents.”

“… I thought their parents didn't know who he was?”

“They don't. Or they do now. I don’t know. Liz says Max wants to tell less lies now that he's resurrected or whatever.”

“You don't sound impressed.”

“Ten years of lying and painting me to be a junkie murderer doesn't earn a lot of good will.”

“Not even on Christmas?” Alex jokes.

The front door opens and Maria arrives, gifts in hand. Kyle welcomes her inside, like it's as much his place as it is Alex's. 

It was after all his family cabin, Alex reasons. Tries telling himself not to read into it or to feel more than he already does about it.

“You know she and guerin aren't a thing, right?” Rosa whispers out of the side of her mouth.

“What?”

“They were taking it slow. Making moon eyes at each other. But They've both got too much going on. Or so they say. So they hit the skids.”

Alex pretends to be investigating a precariously hanging ornament. “Why are you telling me this?”

“In case you're just stringing along my brother waiting for Guerin of all people.” Rosa eyes him up and down, like she's ready to condemn Alex.

“I don't want… I'm not going to hurt Kyle.” The contract, the rules should preclude that possibility. They weren’t in this for the long haul. Just until March, until the flurry of holiday togetherness stopped looming over them both.

“Is that so?” Rosa smiles deviously as if Alex just passed a test.

“Guerin and I are done,” Alex says with real finality. Feels the honest truth of it sets into his backbone. “Whatever he is or isn't doing is none of my business. Now excuse me, I’m gonna go help Kyle greet our guest.”

* * *

Christmas morning, Kyle is sifting through the mountains of discarded ribbons and wrapping paper under the Christmas tree. Liz and Maria had gone overboard buying him and Rosa gifts and the fallout lay everywhere from their busy Christmas eve. “So where is _my_ Christmas gift? You know, the one you were supposed to get me for… which rule was it?”

“Rule five,” Alex says into his morning coffee mug. Kyle had poured it for him into a kitschy looking Santa’s head receptacle with a handle that he had picked out. It tasted like mint and cocoa. “And you can stop looking. I didn’t get you anything.”

Kyle throws down the fistfuls of wrapping paper. “Seriously? I got you something!”

Alex shrugs. The concert tickets and the added plus of chew toys for his beagle had been appreciated. “I couldn't find the perfect gift.”

“You could have gotten me an imperfect gift!” Kyle gesticulates, looking a little too heartbroken.

Alex shakes his head. “No. Once I find the right gift you'll get it.”

“When? Saint Patrick’s Day?”

“Maybe.”

Realization dawns over Kyle’s face. “No, no, no, wait. You— You broke a rule.” Kyle says it like its a eureka moment. A breakthrough he’s been waiting for. “You broke a rule! So fair’s fair. I get to break a rule, too.”

“So, you don't want to finish watching Empire Strikes Back?”

Kyle takes the coffee mug out of Alex’s hand, downs a swig and deposits it to the nearest surface he can without looking because he is too preoccupied kissing Alex. 

Kyle tastes like toffee and hot chocolate and warms Alex over like spiked mulled cider. The skin of his unfurling fingers on the back of Alex’s neck sends waves through him that roll along the back of his spine and the labyrinth of emotions walls he’d forgotten he had. Sensations that rock though him and nestle near his chest and making it hard to remember the need to breathe, hard to remember that there is anything other than Kyle’s lips, his unshaven jaw, his cologne.

Alex breaks away. “We have to… We have to stop.”

Kyle draws Alex back in. His lips hovering close. “Alex, we can just—”

“No. We can't.” At a lost suddenly for what to do with his hand, Alex retrieves his tacky coffee mug. Without meaning to he takes a drink forgetting that Kyle had stolen a sip as well. Even the rim of the mug tastes like him.

“I’ll put a movie on… we’ll finish Star Wars,” Alex offers.

“Sure,” Kyle agrees slowly, not looking at him, and they fix in on the couch and don’t speak until the credits roll on Return of the Jedi.

* * *

New Year's Eve rolls around quickly, catching Alex on unawares. The long drag of December hastening to its final close feels like it comes out of nowhere. That or maybe Alex feels like he’s running out of time to fix what he broke over Christmas. That come January he and Kyle will have to resign themselves to the half-truth they’ve stumbled in with no way out.

Alex should be hunting through stores and off-brand holiday sales trying to find the gift he owes Kyle. But something pulls him past the heart of town and into the parking lot of the _Wild Pony_. 

The bar and booths are thinly populated. Most Roswellians preferring to drink at home to feel festive. The crowds won’t be back until sundown and the looming new year.

“Watch your back,” Maria warns from behind the bar. “Rosa is _pissed_ and when she finds you…” Maria tuts ominously, clearly not envying Alex the wrath of Rosa Ortecho. “She says Kyle's been an insufferable mope and it’s all your fault.”

At the counter-top, Maria’s poured something strong and straight. Just what Alex would have ordered. It really did pay having a psychic for a friend.

“Tell me you two didn't break up or something. You looked so happy over Christmas.”

Alex tosses a twenty-dollar bill on the table. Maria regards it with suspicion. “And you know you drink for free.”

“Tell me about my future.” Alex reaches out with his turned over palm. “Please. Like Mimi did back at the drive-thru. Tell me what I’m supposed to do next.”

Maria's manicured nails slider over the creased lines of his skin. She smiles. “You still don’t believe in this stuff. It's all as fake to you as Santa Claus or a politicians promise… but, oh.” Maria closes her eyes and her pupils dart back and forth behind her lids. “You're scared… Scared and hoping. Alex, honey, you're holding back.”

“Don't need to be psychic to guess that.”

“You think if you retreat now it means you won't lose later. Even though you don’t want to give him up. Alex, you have got to stop trying to win. No one fighting you. Even if it feels like, like you can't depend on people or trust them.” Maria looks guilty but keeps a steady face. “It's different with Kyle. I can feel it and I know you can feel it, too.”

Sitting back in his seat, Alex rubs at his face. “I lied to you before. At Thanksgiving. I _was_ mad at you. At You and Guerin. I was mad because I thought he was my only chance that anyone could love me. And you… you were the person who always understood me. More than Liz or Rosa. You were my favorite person, my best friend who always had the right words when I needed them.”

“I'm still here. That won't ever change.”

“But something did change, Maria.”

Kyle changed everything.

“Yeah, you’re right. Now you've got a new favorite person and your new shot at love are all wrapped up in the same guy.” Maria presses in close so her resolve could not be mistaken. “ _Take the shot, Alex._ ”

Alex sighs. “That simple, huh?”

“No, of course not,” Maria chides. “It’s scary as hell and maybe the hardest thing you will ever do. Trust me, I know it doesn't always pan out." Her words drift off from a place of knowing, a personal hurt. “But it's not gonna get any easier drawing battle plans for the future. So you have got to let yourself live in the now. Hold onto the days the best you can. They’re gonna pass you by no matter what.”

Alex looks down at his untouched drink. If Kyle were here, Alex would know to order him a plate of fries and a local brew before the other man even sat down. The same way he knows how Kyle likes his eggs in the morning, that he liked the _Neptuna Melt_ lunch special on order from the _Crashdown_. How he knows who is calling Kyle's phone before checking the ID; he has a special ringtone just for his mother and a second on for sister. That Kyle loved the winter and wished their was enough sticky snow left over to build snow men because he was ever the eternal child on the inside. Alex downs the drink with his mind finally, finally made up.

“There he is,” says Maria. “The Alex Manes I remember.”

Emboldened, Alex leans over the bar to peck Maria on the cheek. When he pulls back her eyes are wet and she takes his hands once more. “Oh, and watch out for the new man in your life.”

Alex reels back in astonishment. “What? Like another guy?” 

“Yes, he’s got… a forked tongue and dark eyes. Covered in tattoos…” Maria concentrates harder and her brow wrinkles from the effort. “No, not tattoos. Scales, patterned scales. You’ll find him somewhere nearby Isobel’s… baby bunnies?”

* * *

Convincing Kyle to come over takes some work. Convincing him to listen once Alex opens the cabin door— that’s near impossible.

“Alright you’re gonna listen to me, Manes. And no, do not interrupt me,” Kyle gesticulates wildly, pacing the length of the living room. “I have been waiting days for the chance to say this. No, longer than that, I’ve been waiting since before Thanksgiving, before we broke into my mom’s office or went conspiracy theory hunting. Since I figured out myself and could admit that you were everything I want. Because you and me have been in this, _this thing_ , for a while now and I’m done pretending—”

“Kyle, I agree—”

“Stop! Alright, I get to talk first.” Kyle points at his chest, breathing hard. “I get to tell you how I feel because the hell with rule number one. Rule number one is stupid and I hate it and if I’m in love with you I should be allowed to tell you or to tell anyone I want. I mean, screw it, I’ll tell your dad if I want to.”

“I really advise against that—”

“Too bad! I’m gonna tell him and your brothers and my sister and my mom and Maria and that too-tall Max Evans and Guerin, too. Because screw, Guerin, alright!”

“I’d rather not.”

“And look, I get it,” he continues, not hearing a word Alex is saying. “He was your first love and that’s a big deal but we’re not kids anymore. Even though sometimes when I’m with you it feels like it did when we were young, when it was just you and me against the world. But it's more than that now! I feel like I get to be the person, the adult, that I’m proud of when I’m with you, the man my dad would have been proud of. And you… you make it all look easy.”

“Make what look easy?”

“Being the best man I know. You make the hard choices look easy… Even when you are being grouchy and sarcastic and pushy. And when you start talking in military lingo that you forget I have no way of deciphering. And sometimes you are so combative that you look at the world like your searching for its weakness so it can’t find yours first. And have I mentioned what an awful pessimist you can be, like all of the time?”

Alex feels flayed open and uncomfortably familiar. “This is how you convince me that you like me?”

Kyle pinches the bridge of his nose. “Love, not like,” he corrects. “I am in love with you. I love how much you need coffee to survive, even though it's unhealthy and in my medical opinion, you need decaf. And I love that you never forget the lyrics to any song in existence. And I love that you are braver than you give yourself credit for and you fight harder than anyone when you really love something. And I have spent the past month going along with an embarrassing fake relationship hoping you would figure how I felt about you before I lost my mind over it.”

“Well I didn’t figure it out,” Alex admits. “Not until you kissed me.”

Kyle’s eyes shine with tentative delight. “So let me kiss you again and we’ll work the rest out later.”

“But don’t you want to meet your Christmas gift?”

Kyle raises his brow, startled. “Meet?”

In the living room, Alex’s dog lays its belly against a thatched rug. Its nose is perked in the air and easy flopping aside as it investigates the new glass case against the wall. The glass is adorned with an oversized red ribbon, in encasing a series of branches and logs protruding from the sands and rocks below. The sole inhabitant residing inside winds slowly around, content and cozy under the heater in the lid.

“You always wanted a pet.” Alex reminds him. “Ever since we were kids.”

“Yeah, so you got me a… a cold unfeeling reptile?”

The forked tongue of the snake flitters from its small mouth then tucks away back a second later.

“They are actually are complex creatures. Curious and habitual, largely misunderstood. All he wants is warmth, food, and the safety of a few good hiding places.”

“Ok but, why a snake?”

“Its needs are simple. It eats once a week. They require a calm, consistent owner. They're for busy caretakers— like a doctor who works insane hours— but also for people who are good at looking under the surface, who don't judge a thing by its prickly nature.”

A grin spreads of Kyle’s face. His eyes don’t tear away from the creature. “You’re not prickly, Alex. Thorny, maybe, but not prickly.”

“Plus, if I got you a dog, my beagle would be jealous. I can't have that. Not to mention that's just too many extraverted animals in my house— you included.”

Kyle laughs. “I love it but you didn’t have to do all this.”

Alex doesn’t want to argue about it. He doesn’t want to ruminate any deeper on hopelessly wandering the aisles of the _Out of This World Pet Store_ until he had to call Isobel Evans of all people for help. How he passed the lizards before finding the perfect creature. Felt a kinship with the serpentine thing, understanding something in himself. Alex knew what it was like to go quiet, to feel himself sink into a lethal place. A place that felt protective of his soft underbelly once, but now he had long since outgrown it. There was an unforgiving skin over his emotions that constrained them; instead of shedding old hurts, he held on too long. But Kyle saw through all that.

More than that Kyle made Alex see that in the battle of nature versus nurture, he would never be perfect, he would never be done healing. But now it was time for a new cycle to begin. Here and now with Kyle, Alex felt like he finally had a place to start.

“So does your fulfilling rule give mean I have to stop kissing you?” Kyle asks, straight to the point.

Sighing with a dramatic flair, Alex takes it upon himself to kiss Kyle. Really, if he must.

“So maybe we don't have to break up at Saint Patrick's day,” Kyle mentions breathlessly after. “How do you feel about Memorial Day?”

“You're gonna dump your veteran boyfriend on Memorial Day? Really?”

Kyle makes a thoughtful face. “What about National Hot and Spicy Food Day?”

“That's not a real thing.”

“It is! I know this because I've looked up every major and minor holiday from here till next December. I've been planning this negotiation for weeks.”

“How about we just stick it out and see where it goes, no timeline included.”

Deliriously happy, Alex lets himself be kissed again with Kyle's gentle touch on both sides of his face. An aching joy envelopes them both and Alex feels himself falling, head first, eyes open, deeper into his embrace.

“You know we got to a name this guy something,” Kyle points out. The snake ignores them, stretching over further into his cage. “What do you think? Vulcan Nerve Pinch? Admiral Ackbar? And yeah I know they're not from the same franchise…” 

“I've been calling him Hippocrates. Like the oath; I thought you’d like that,” Alex says smugly.

“You are right. I love it,” Kyle beams, looking back from his gift like a man who’s got it all. “Merry Christmas, Alex.”

“Christmas was days ago,” Alex interrupts, factual and difficult as always.

“Yeah well, you only just figured out your own emotions, but I forgive you for it because I'm the bigger person and I love you.”

Alex laughs. “Yeah, yeah. Merry Christmas, and I love you too.”

**_fin._ **


End file.
